With most of the Balkans firmly under the grip of the Atlantic Empire, the empire now seem to be placing their dirty paws on the only place in the region that is left for them to further pillage, plunder and colonize: Serbia. War criminal Tony Blair is back in town, and so are some of the criminals that were directly involved in bombing Serbia in the 1990s. Once Blair arrives in town, fellow warmongering psychopaths can't be far behind.

In 2014 former CIA Director David Petraeus, now chairman of KKR Global Institute, subsidiary of Wall Street vulture capitalist firm KKR & Co., visited Serbia and met with Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, who welcomed him and his plans with open arms. The theme of their conversation was about 'attracting foreign investors' - neoliberal economic-speak for plundering Serbian companies, workers and resources. Petraeus emphasized that KKR Global Institute wanted to contribute to the 'economic development' of the country, and that it wanted to turn Belgrade into a 'center for digitalization' in the region. We all know what that really means. It seems that they're following through on such plans: in the last year a significant portion of Serbian media has come under KKR management.

Invest in Serbia: High-skilled, low-cost workers

Maybe the U.S. government's grip on Serbian media and government can also explain this shameless video that recently appeared on CNN, where the Serbian government boasts about their 'low-cost, high-skilled workers' (slaves) in an effort to attract foreign investors (slave-masters). This is the modern face of imperialism: government officials of US client nations today are begging - and even paying - for agents of the empire of chaos to come and mistreat and impoverish their workers in return for kickbacks for the local government officials.

The now 'free' Serbian government is not only giving away control of its media to its oppressors; it's bringing in the oppressors to 'advise' the government on policy-making. Tony Blair also made regular visits to Belgrade in recent months, but it seems that he's now staying for good and will be 'offering his expertise'. As Prime Minister, Vucic has performed quite a turnaround since he - as minister in the Yugoslavian government while Blair was bombing his country - was listed as an editor of a book titled English Gay Fart Tony Blair.

Boris Nemtsov was shot in the back last night as he walked with his Ukrainian girlfriend near the Kremlin in Moscow. Nemtsov ran unsuccessfully for office in 1989 before eventually being elected to Russia's parliament in 1990. As deputy minister for economic reform under Yeltsin, he failed to actually deliver economic reform amid the August 1998 economic crisis and it cost him his job.

In 1999 he founded the Union of Right Forces (SPS), along with fellow liberals Anatoly Chubais and Yegor Gaidar. The SPS was directly sponsored by the US government (via USAID) in 2002, after which it became openly critical of Russia's new President Putin (surprise!). This fact alone establishes Nemtsov and SPS as agents of Western efforts to destabilize Russia and therefore not representative of any significant section of the Russian people. Indeed, in the 2003 election, the SPS failed to reach even the 5% threshold needed to enter parliament.

In 2004 he joined the Ukrainian government of Mister-US-backed-Orange-Revolution Victor Yushenko, as an 'economic adviser'. He was kicked out of the job in 2006 because of complaints from cabinet members that he was criticizing their decisions.

In case you haven't noticed, a war has been raging all around you for the past 12 months. Not a 'hot' war, but a massive propaganda war of the kind that usually precedes such military action.

The US' full-spectrum disinformation offensive against Russia began in earnest back in 2006 with the death by polonium poisoning of anti-Putin campaigner Alexander Litvinenko. Despite the fact that, before Litvinenko, the only murderers with previous form for death-by-polonium were those responsible for the murder of Yasser Arafat, the Western media immediately and persistently pointed to Putin as the culprit in Litvinenko's murder.

Earlier this year a UK government inquiry into his death began and the same allegations, based on the "everyone knows Putin's a thug" school of a priori, evidence-bereft, legal argumentation were made. One small piece of information revealed by the inquiry that completely undermined the claim that Putin had anything to do with the death of Litvinenko was, however, studiously ignored by the Western media.

According to the British government's story, the arch 'anti-Putin crusader' was dispatched by two FSB agents who administered the radioactive poison to him by offering him the rest of the pot of tea (about half a cup) they had ordered in a London hotel. The problem with this claim is that Litvinenko himself spontaneously arranged the meeting with the two men just a few hours before he met them. So to believe that the two agents killed their former compatriot, we have to assume that they somehow suspected that Litvinenko was going to ask them for a meet-up and had been carrying around a stash of Polonium for just such an occasion. In addition, one of the agents introduced his 8 year old son to Litvinenko, even telling him to shake his hand, after Litvinenko had drunk some of the supposedly radioactive tea. Litvinenko's wife, Marina, told the inquiry that at the time of his death Litvinenko was working for MI6.

Putin's somewhat famous speech at the 2007 Munich Security Conference is presented as the moment when Russia publicly and unilaterally 'broke' with the West. But Putin's comments in Munich were made on the back of several years of US and British government covert and overt attempts to destabilize the Russian government and force it to accept the reality that the anglo-American empire rules supreme. Rather than bow to this pressure, Putin chose to administer a dose of truth and reality to the warmongers:

"The history of humanity certainly has gone through unipolar periods and seen aspirations to world supremacy. And what hasn't happened in world history? What is a unipolar world? However one might embellish this term, at the end of the day it refers to one type of situation, namely one centre of authority, one centre of force, one centre of decision-making.

It is a world in which there is one master, one sovereign. And at the end of the day this is pernicious, not only for all those within this system, but also for the sovereign itself because it destroys itself from within.

And this certainly has nothing in common with democracy. Because, as you know, democracy is the power of the majority in light of the interests and opinions of the minority.

Incidentally, Russia - we - are constantly being taught about democracy. But for some reason those who teach us do not want to learn themselves. Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force - military force - in international relations, force that is plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts. We are seeing a greater and greater disdain for the basic principles of international law. And independent legal norms are, as a matter of fact, coming increasingly closer to one state's legal system. One state and, of course, first and foremost the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is visible in the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations. Well, who likes this? Who is happy about this?"

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an article about some courageous women who dared to speak up against the fascism in Ukraine. There is, however, another group of people there who cannot speak up for themselves, and who are even less equipped to deal with life in a war zone: the children.

The relatively peaceful world that the children of East Ukraine knew before the 'Maidan' is long gone. Living under constant bombardment, in bomb-shelters, sometimes without one or both parents and witnessing horrific scenes is scarring these children in a way that, even with proper attention and care, will take a long time to heal. My own mother-in-law was 6 years of age when the German army quickly overran Paris in WWII. Although the attack was short, the trauma of the bombings, sirens and bomb-shelters left her scarred for life with chronic nervousness and anxiety attacks. Now think of the children in Donbass and the ongoing terror campaign that the Kiev junta is waging there - for close to a year now, and with little respite in view.

...we [in Ukraine] will have work - they [in the Donbass] won't. We will have pensions - they won't. We will care for our children and pensioners - they won't. Our children will go to school, to kindergartens - their children will sit in cellars. They don't know how to organize or do anything. This, ultimately, is how we will win this war.

In the early 80s' the world was shocked by headlines reporting violence against abortion clinics, staff and doctors by religious fundamentalist groups. The first such reported case was the kidnapping of Hector Zevallos, an abortion clinic owner and operator, and his wife, by three men identifying themselves as the Army of God. Zevallos and his wife were held for eight days. Since that time, there have been further kidnappings, bombings of clinics, murders and attempted murders of staff and supporters, hundreds of death threats and over 150 cases of assault and battery by anti-abortion activists. The violence has since spread from the United States to Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

And the violence continues today, with the 2012 bombings of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Grand Chute, Wisconsin and the firebombing of the Ladies Clinic in Pensacola, Florida, the site of the 1994 murder of Dr. John Britton and his attendant James Barrett and a previous bombing on Christmas Day, 1984 (the quartet of perpetrators later calling the bombing "a gift to Jesus on his birthday").

The actions of these Pro-Lifer terrorists leave many people confused. How can anyone care so much about a cause like pro-life versus pro-choice that they are prepared to carry out violent attacks and protests, death threats and smear campaigns? How can one's fundamentalism lead one to take such seemingly contradictory actions - to kill in order to uphold the "thou shalt not kill" commandment?

But such is the mindset of the religious terrorist. One becomes so wrapped up in their cause, no matter how misguided, that these seeming contradictions don't hold any water. It's what's commonly referred to as "being a complete whackjob".

In late November 2013, the 'Euromaidan' in Kiev began as a popular protest against a generalized state of corruption and cronyism in Ukraine. The spark that ostensibly ignited the protests was the inability of then President Yanukovych to sign an EU Association Agreement that would cut Ukraine's economic and military ties to Russia in favor of a closer relationship with the EU and NATO.

The EU had made the release of former Ukrainian prime minister and "gas princess" Tymoshenko a precondition for signing the agreement. But the fact that Tymoshenko was/is a convicted embezzler of state funds, combined with the rather severe economic impact the EU Association Agreement would have had on the Ukrainian economy, made it impossible for a consensus in the Ukrainian government to be reached, despite the fact that Yanukovych urged Parliament to put aside their differences and ratify the agreement. In fact, the EU's insistence that Tymoshenko be released appears now to have been designed to ensure the EU-Ukraine Association agreement failed and Yanukovych blamed for that failure and removed from office. Whatever the case, when the agreement was not signed, Ukrainians took to the streets in protest, right on cue.

[T]he whole world had become strange and unsettling. Apart from the fascinating rules I knew, the great game had clearly had other secret rules that I had failed to grasp. There must have been something deceitful and false about it. Where could one find stability and security, faith and confidence, if world events could be so deceptive? If triumph upon triumph led to ultimate disaster, and the true rules of history were revealed only retrospectively in a shattering outcome? I stared into the abyss. I felt a horror for life. (Defying Hitler, p. 27)

Sebastian Haffner

This is how one young German man described his experience of the events that led to Nazi Germany. His name was Sebastian Haffner. He later became a journalist and historian, and his memoir, Defying Hitler, offers a candid, insightful perspective on the real impact of Nazism: its effect on the inner lives of the people who experienced it.

It's books like Defying Hitler that are essential if we, as a species, are ever going to learn how to remove ourselves from the seemingly endless cycles of affluence, ignorance, oppression and mutual destruction. Dry military histories, political memoirs, academic analyses, newspaper articles - all can provide some important details, but they miss the point. They miss the heart of the matter, the essence of the situation that makes it matter. In short, they lack psychological depth.

Alisa and Gabriel are brother and sister. Alisa is 9 and Gabriel 8. They are the children of an English father and Russian mother and have lived in the Hampstead area of London for most of their lives. Hampstead is an upmarket area of London that has more millionaires within its boundaries than any other area of the United Kingdom. The children's mother was formerly married to a Mr. Draper whom she met and married in Russia and with whom she has one son (James). Alisa and Gabriel's father is Richard Dearman. He and the former Ms. Draper are now separated.

According to Ms. Draper, Mr. Dearman was sexually deviant, abusive and behaved violently towards her and their children during their relationship. Mr. Dearman was eventually asked to leave the family home in 2007. Over the next few years however he continued to stalk the children, showing up at their school or at the store and, on several occasions, breaking into Ms. Draper's home. Between 2006 and 2010 the police were called out 5 times and 3 reports filed over Mr. Dearman's abuse. Ms. Draper has testified:

"Within a few years winter snowfall will become a very rare and exciting event. Children just aren't going to know what snow is."

~ Dr David Viner, senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, UK, in March 2000.

"Ultimately, British children could have only virtual experience of snow. Via the internet, they might wonder at polar scenes - or eventually 'feel' virtual cold."

~ David Parker, head of the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Berkshire, UK, also in March 2000.

Last month, phenomenal amounts of snow were dumped in the Northeastern and Southern US, Western and Southeastern Europe, the Middle East, Western China, and Far Eastern Russia. Saudi Arabia and the Southwestern US desert were hit with snow for the third year running. The US media has apparently dropped the term 'Polar Vortex' because Arctic conditions extending all the way to the Gulf of Mexico is now 'normal'. The one place where you might expect a lot of snow this time of year - Moscow - instead enjoyed its warmest January in 100 years.

The Great Lakes in North America aren't as frozen over as they were this time last year, but those 'ice boulders' returned to Michigan in January, and the Niagara Falls have again partially frozen. Up to half a million people were affected by the worst flooding Southeastern Africa has seen for decades. The Balkans were flooded for the 5th time in 20 months, and barely two months on from receiving 70cm of rain in one day, Sicily was hit with a similar quantity of hail. Among the spectacular meteor fireball sightings in January were a comet fragment breaking apart over the Russian Far East, and a fireball that turned night into day in Bucharest, Romania.

'Mystery booms' continue to freak people (and animals) out across the US. We suspect that some of them are shockwaves from overhead meteor explosions, but others occur in clusters and are picked up by seismometers (despite there being no known fault-lines), so we are probably looking at general and unusual seismic activity resulting from the slow-down in the planet's rotation. This would also be responsible for all these volcanic eruptions, of which there were more spectacular ones in January. 'Earth opening up' also saw sinkholes swallow moving cars in Florida and Maryland.

As you watch this video summary of events in January, keep in mind that we had to leave out so many other unusual events because they're now part of 'the new normal'!

Wherever atrocities happen it is a crime. Wherever atrocities happen AND the media remains silent it is not only a crime, but also a dark spot on the conscience of humanity. As Hitchcock showed in the documentary of the Holocaust and the Nazi concentration camps, the people living near these camps claimed to be unaware of the atrocities being committed in their midst. Information was available, but as Harrison Koehli wrote in his article, a number of social conformity biases take effect. This causes unpleasant events to be explained away and compartmentalized in a dark corner of the brain. It is one of the characteristics of authoritarian followers, as Bob Altemeyer has shown in his studies. Today, even more so than in the 1930's, the information is only a Google search away. Yet, in all fairness, the signal to noise ratio is probably the same as in the '30s, especially given that the vast majority of the media is owned by just six corporations who do not appear to have the interests of humanity at heart.

One example is Ukraine. The tragedy in Ukraine has now been ongoing for more than a year. The Western media has, throughout the entire sequence of events, been accusing Russia of starting the conflict by invading Ukraine. Sanctions upon sanctions have been heaped on Russia based on those accusations, which in both the Russian and alternative media have been exposed as falsehoods. Yet everything that contradicts the official Western line has been labelled Russian propaganda and the statements coming from the Western installed puppets in Kiev taken as unquestionable facts.

But the truth is slowly emerging, even from statements made by Western and Ukrainian leaders. Below is a list of statements made in recent days which contradict the official Western government and media narrative for the last year and highlight the truth of most of the claims made by Russian and alternative media over the same time period.